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The Rich Don't Penny Pinch

seanmcclure.substack.com

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Re: The Rich Don't Penny Pinch

#21

Post by jayski »

motohagiography wrote: post #13
lotsofpulp wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A penny pincher is the person who goes to dinner with a dozen people and ends up spending an hour trying to "fairly" divide the check among everyone. Or, the one who says a few days later that you should treat him to lunch because he only had a single glass of wine whereas everyone else had two or some such. Alcoholic drinks in most popular cities are $10+ per drink, if not $18+ in tier 1 cities. If someone that do…

Maybe they wouldn't be as budget constrained if they were easier to invite places? I can't invite my teetotaling and vegetarian friends out to many of the casual things I enjoy, and their purity issues create a self-imposed artificial constraint on their life opportunities. Someone with an actual medical issue learns to adapt to life and live it, where someone with a purity constraint selects for oppotunities where t…

that was very well said.

Re: The Rich Don't Penny Pinch

#22

Post by lotsofpulp »

jkrems wrote: post #16
lotsofpulp wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A penny pincher is the person who goes to dinner with a dozen people and ends up spending an hour trying to "fairly" divide the check among everyone. Or, the one who says a few days later that you should treat him to lunch because he only had a single glass of wine whereas everyone else had two or some such. Alcoholic drinks in most popular cities are $10+ per drink, if not $18+ in tier 1 cities. If someone that do…

If food or drink consumption was the primary purpose of going out, there'd be no reason to coordinate and meet. If a group of people meets for food, they don't meet for food. They meet for each other. They meet to enjoy each others company, the mood, and good discussions. The price of food and drinks for the group is meant to facilitate these things. For the group. That's not paying for other people's alcohol consump…

> I've been routinely in groups where somebody with budget constraint paid less. Not because they ate or drink less. But because the group decided that it was their fair share, based on the group's perception of fairness.

That is interesting, I have never been in this situation because it seems awkward to bring it up explicitly. That is why I think it is better to simple expect people to pay for what they consume, so it may be implicitly understood that they may be budget constrained without it being a topic.

I imagine most people who are budget constrained simply opt to decline an invitation to meet with friends if they know the average bill will include an extra couple drinks they cannot afford. To me, this is a worse outcome than spending the very little mental effort required to allocate expenses individually.

Re: The Rich Don't Penny Pinch

#23

Post by ebiester »

wink wrote: post #12

> But then you stop and think wait a second, this person is alone and wearing a mask. Isn't that odd? In fact it seems downright ridiculous. Why would anyone wear a mask in their car when they are alone? The author has clearly not spent a lot of time in normal mode around people who have to wear their mask for their full shift. Yes, those people forget. Not us keyboard warriors who put it on twice a day for a few min…

On top of that, when I'm going to have to put it back on in less than 5 minutes, I'll often just leave it back on. It's really not that big of a deal to wear.

Re: The Rich Don't Penny Pinch

#24

Post by don-code »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #3

The world is full of people who take a casual attitude towards their finances. They are the ones we keep reading about when we are told most people can't raise $1000 in an emergency or don't think they will ever be able to afford retirement.

It's difficult for me to sympathize with coworkers who have trouble making rent, knowing that they make the same amount of money I do, but have wildly different spending patterns. Juxtaposing $200k+ of student debt with $100+ bar tabs, multiple nights per week (to be fair, the company we were at was on a death march at the time) doesn't seem like taking an opportunity, to use the article's phrasing - it seems frivolous.

Re: The Rich Don't Penny Pinch

#25

Post by satellite2 »

motohagiography wrote: post #13
lotsofpulp wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A penny pincher is the person who goes to dinner with a dozen people and ends up spending an hour trying to "fairly" divide the check among everyone. Or, the one who says a few days later that you should treat him to lunch because he only had a single glass of wine whereas everyone else had two or some such. Alcoholic drinks in most popular cities are $10+ per drink, if not $18+ in tier 1 cities. If someone that do…

Maybe they wouldn't be as budget constrained if they were easier to invite places? I can't invite my teetotaling and vegetarian friends out to many of the casual things I enjoy, and their purity issues create a self-imposed artificial constraint on their life opportunities. Someone with an actual medical issue learns to adapt to life and live it, where someone with a purity constraint selects for oppotunities where t…

> pick up the entire tab for, because the pleasure of their company is well worth it. If their company is not worth that, I'd say that's the definition of wasted time.

So you restrict yourself to life opportunities (restaurants) where you can afford an entire group tab?

You naughty penny pincher!

Re: The Rich Don't Penny Pinch

#26

Post by lotsofpulp »

motohagiography wrote: post #13
lotsofpulp wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A penny pincher is the person who goes to dinner with a dozen people and ends up spending an hour trying to "fairly" divide the check among everyone. Or, the one who says a few days later that you should treat him to lunch because he only had a single glass of wine whereas everyone else had two or some such. Alcoholic drinks in most popular cities are $10+ per drink, if not $18+ in tier 1 cities. If someone that do…

Maybe they wouldn't be as budget constrained if they were easier to invite places? I can't invite my teetotaling and vegetarian friends out to many of the casual things I enjoy, and their purity issues create a self-imposed artificial constraint on their life opportunities. Someone with an actual medical issue learns to adapt to life and live it, where someone with a purity constraint selects for oppotunities where t…

> I can't invite my teetotaling and vegetarian friends out to many of the casual things I enjoy, and their purity issues create a self-imposed artificial constraint on their life opportunities. Someone with an actual medical issue learns to adapt to life and live it, where someone with a purity constraint selects for oppotunities where they can impose it on others.

Who is imposing on whom? I did not write the vegetarians and teetotalers force others to not eat meat or not drink alcohol.

> Also, if someone is struggling financially, adding a social purity constraint to their lives seems like a self sabotaging substitute where they are choosing for luck and opportunity to pass them over instead of accepting their circumstances and changing them. As though they can afford purity, without considering what it costs.

I do not even understand what the context of the word “purity” is in your comment. I find the whole theme of the comment to be bizarre.

> Dining out isn't about the food, it's about company and companionship, and I don't eat with anyone I'm not willing to pick up the entire tab for, because the pleasure of their company is well worth it. If their company is not worth that, I'd say that's the definition of wasted time.

I would go out almost every day of the week in my 20s in a very expensive city. With lots of different people, and random people could be invited at anytime by anyone. I certainly do not think it reasonable to want to, or even be able to, pick up the entire tab for all the groups one goes out with.

I am not talking about a small group or one on one meal with a friend you see once every year. For that, yes, paying or splitting evenly is not a big deal, although I would never let my friends consistently pay extra for me outside of occasions.

Re: The Rich Don't Penny Pinch

#27

Post by sumtechguy »

rory wrote: post #18
BrianOnHN wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world is full of people with a hoarding attitude toward an arbitrarily chosen store of value. They are the ones we keep reading about when we are told poor decisions have collapsed buildings, destroyed ecosystems, caused wars and unnecessary human suffering.

The rich by and large aren't hoarding cash. They own things with intrinsic value.

They then use those items and borrow cash against them as needed. Think about some the large property companies. Renting property is a pain to do. Yet some of these companies are huge and have millions of dollars they are floating. Why? Because the owners borrow against them to fund their other ventures. Then use the profits of that to pay off anything they borrowed.

Ownership of things that have actual value is the number one way to becoming wealthy. Owning flashy toys and extravagant dinners all the time is a quick way to spend it all for 'the rich'. One dude I follow put it best the wealthy exploit the rich by renting them flashy toys, the rich try to get money from the middle class by selling them things.

Re: The Rich Don't Penny Pinch

#28

Post by sumtechguy »

jayski wrote: post #19

invest all the time you use penny pinching into making more money. youll have a lot more in the end and be better liked. if youre worrying about wether your part of the check is $7.23 or $11.17 because you didn't have wine, you're not in the right mindset to make money. i follow the rule: if im going to argue over money, its because im going to sue you. if its not enough to warrant a lawyer, i just take the L and for…

Interesting take. For a 'one off' I would not worry about it. But if they are doing it to you a few times, speak up. They are just taking advantage of you. It is not the 5 bucks. It is the fact that you are doing it to you...

Re: The Rich Don't Penny Pinch

#29

Post by throwaway0a5e »

I absolutely hate these sorts of "take a broad generalization, blindly run with it to extremes then pontificate about edge cases in where it breaks" articles. They accomplish little but to indulge online commenters desire to engage in behavior that runs the spectrum from bike shedding to virtue signaling. Of course everyone has a bone to pic with some specific part of the article. Of course everyone wants to elaborate their anecdotal examples. This article was written to facilitate just those things. This is a trash tabloid article for people who think they are too good to read trash tabloid articles.

Re: The Rich Don't Penny Pinch

#30

Post by don-code »

api wrote: post #5

The converse is not true; you don't get rich by spending freely. That being said, there's good frugality and bad frugality. Bad frugality is being "penny wise and pound foolish," spending less now in ways that result in spending more later.

I've noticed a bathtub curve in cost of ownership on many things. Typically, I do save a good bit of money up front by buying used, and then try hard to repair rather than replace. Eventually, though, a failure mode of all gadgets seems to be an increasing-at-an-increasing-rate amount of spend needed on upkeep.

Admittedly, I've been notoriously bad at realizing that I've entered that phase. On three high-profile occasions (two computers and a car) I've exceeded the saleable value of the thing in upkeep costs, in the span of just a few months - it would've been cheaper to divest and replace.

Determining that you've crossed that inflection point is, I assume, a skill.

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